<p>There are many mature people in this forum. But it is hard to figure out why Bulgaria will make BGjeez smile. Besides, Bulgaria is no longer top perfomer in recent IMOs. USA has outdone Bulgaria by a mile.</p>
<p>You guys seem to ignore the fact that this guy wasn't some nerd who did nothing except practice tests all day. He was pretty involved extracurricularily too...</p>
<p>Actually I know a kid with similar stats who got accepted...he was high school class of '05. </p>
<p>Tough luck for that kid. Funny how this turned into the crowd bashing asians (yes I can bring up exact quotes saying "geesh asians" or something similar to that). </p>
<p>If affirmative action exists, then it exists by taking a portion from some of the other groups (ex Jews (in the old times), Asians etc). You really can't argue that affirmative action magically creates new spots or something. </p>
<p>Asians do have it harder than other people when it comes to college. I'm just stating a simple matter of fact care. We get better education as a whole, and thus our group as a whole faces more stringent requirements. It makes sense, and most asians don't mind.</p>
<p>Slak: "I would hope that such an education allows an individual to really mature as a person and understand that difference between being educated, and just having good grades."</p>
<p>Hillarious. Please explain how you measure the quality of education of individual people. Usually people consider good grades correspond to good education, and vice versa. And outliers don't count as evidence.</p>
<p>Kamikaze, pebbles was the one who said "I swear. Asians." She is Asian herself. :)</p>
<p>As far as measuring the quality of education of individual people -- that's precisely what the admissions process is designed to do.</p>
<p>I saw an analogy on these boards that I really liked a few months ago: Say you're looking to hire someone as a money manager. Person A has $25,000, while Person B has $15,000. Would you hire Person A based on the numbers on the surface, or would you dig a little deeper to find that A started with $24,000, while B started with $1,000?</p>
<p>Admissions officers are constantly trying to discern what the "true merit" of applicants is -- trying to dissect raw ability away from the opportunities a student had or didn't have. It's an imperfect process. But I'd rather have it than a process which relied on numbers alone. A lot of people with sky-high stats (of all ethnicities) are just not very nice people.</p>
<p>Ha! No I'm not a student...and I just totally made that up about Bulgaria.</p>
<p>It's obvious that the majority of mature people in this group are MIT graduates. I doubt if Harver alumni would care to read this column. Therefore my topic was doomed for critiques. At the same time, I would like to let the MIT wanna be students</p>
<p>The last post was obviously unfinished and accidentally sent out when the "Post Quick Reply" was enabled somehow. </p>
<p>My intention was to let college applicants know the fact of truth in admission process. MIT could easily upset a science-math student like this, so can Ivies. People here often go extreme to defend the MIT admission process. I would not argue with them to details. To certain extend they are right but they cannot prove the fairness of admission among different ethnic groups.</p>
<p>And you cannot prove that they are unfair.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's obvious that the majority of mature people in this group are MIT graduates.
[/quote]
Now wait, do you mean "mature" as a compliment (these posters make well-reasoned, sensible arguments), or are you calling us old? :p</p>
<p>As you can't prove fair or unfair, it is upto the readers to judge. All the posters are doing is to try influence their juegement. </p>
<p>The word "mature" used here is certainly not hostile. I just happened to pick it up from one of ealier posts.</p>
<p>I am from Bulgaria...I thought the BG in my name would hint you that. It's ok, guys, I am not smiling anymore. The World Olympics in mathematics in Tokyo, Japan in 2003 were won by the Bulgarian students. It was a great suprise to USA and China for a small, economicly unstable countrly like ours to outdo them. In 2004, the Bulgarian team returned from the Olympics in Athens, Greece with oen golden and three silver medals. I am not aware of the team's performance for the last two years. For some odd reason, I thought mombat was thinking of that when he mentioned the name of my lovely country. I understand the real situation now. Of course USA has outdone Bulgaria, a 7 million population country with the size of Tennessee, in many, many ways. But my country with its 1300 yrs history has contributed significantly to this world and once again I see that the world does not know about it.</p>
<p>Sorry, BG--I was not sure where you were coming from. I'm absolutely not surprised that Bulgarian students do well in math competitions--whether it's a holdover of the emphasis on science and technology left over from the cold war or it's something else, I'm aware that many, many countries in Eastern Europe and Asia do better than US students on standardized math tests. I'm not sure which ones score better, so I picked Bulgaria at random, not to make fun of Bulgaria, but to illustrate that many small countries such as Singapore and yes, Bulgaria, regularly outscore US students, when I'm sure the per capita expenditure on education in the US is orders of magnitude higher than those countries.</p>
<p>" I am sure that the rejection has huge effect on a math-science oriented kid. His broad knowledge in Science made him always finish first or second in state science written contests. His math skill should be ranked in top 10 in the state, even higher within his grade."</p>
<p>If it had a huge effect on him because he assumed he'd get in, then he's lucky that at his young age, he has learned some important lessons: There are no guarantees in life; no matter how wonderful you are, don't assume that you'll get a position just because you have excellent stats or other qualifications. </p>
<p>If months after MIT's decision, he's still bitter, resentful, and feels his life is over because of it, then it's clear that MIT made an excellent decision. The top colleges aren't looking to accept students who only are able to handle success. The top colleges want students who also can carry on despite disappointments. They also want students who don't get shattered when they are not #1 all of the time.</p>
<p>When I said a huge effect, I didn't say it is an all bad effect. It is indeed a good lesson learned for the individual. It is also a lesson to share with new college applicants and their concerned parents. It is just another evidence of how the admission bar is set for Asian students. </p>
<p>As a matter of fact there are so many excellent colleges in the States. A truly talented and motivated student will excel in any of them. I am sure that the bitter and resentful feeling is a short-term effect.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It is just another evidence of how the admission bar is set for Asian students.
[/quote]
No, it is an example of how high the admission bar is for students striving to be admitted to MIT and a few of the other very top schools in the country. Scores alone are insufficient to admit a student. Many factors that we are not privvy to, including recommendation letters, essays, and interviews, also enter into the decisions. We can assume all we like about what those factors looked like, but none of us can really know. Any speculation about why a particular student was not admitted is only ever that: pure speculation.</p>
<p>This applicant cited by the OP obviously has amazing stats- clearly the creme de la creme. With that said, I'm pretty sure one of the following went wrong:</p>
<p>1) His essay SUCKED to the extent it was offensive
2) His recommendations must've been terrible
3) He blew his interview pretty bad (doubt it)</p>
<p>Given the stats of this applicant, I say the admissions office pretty much definitely had a CLEAR reason not to admit him (my suspicion is the recc letters and essay). Clearly, any University would be glad to admit a student of his caliber, and since all of those Ivies rejected him, there must've been SOME glaring error.</p>
<p>Bottom line: This definitely was not a random rejection. His stats are way to above average.</p>
<p>Alot of you guys are confusing Jian Li and this student (nameless). They are not the same student...</p>
<p>Whatever this nameless student and Jian Li had, they were not rejected because of their ethnicity/race...</p>
<p>...For I'm sure there was at least one accepted Asian without perfect SAT's</p>
<p>If these people dont want the fact that theyre asian to be against them, why dont they just leave out their ethnicity on the app?</p>
<p>The point has already been made in this thread, if I remember correctly, that a name of Chinese origin usually reveals Chinese ethnic origin to a very high probability. But I agree that it is a good idea for all college applicants to decline to identify their ethnic affiliation--we are all human beings, and none of the existing systems of categories on application forms fit all human beings.</p>